Life-Long-Learners

Have you ever received a tweet containing a great idea or educational resource, only to have it “disappear” when you need it? Have you ever wanted to share an idea, about a week after you had learned about it through a  Twitter feed, but because you had not designated it as a “Favorite”, it too was “lost”? Perhaps you have shared an idea or re-tweeted someone’s awesome resource and yet when you want to share this same tweet with another colleague, two weeks later, the tweet can no longer be located. If you have encountered these or similar situations, I have some possible solutions.

Unfortunately my incoming tweets, from my Personal Learning Network (PLN) seem to have a very short “shelf life”. For example, I find that tweets seem to be “visible” in TweetDeck, (which I use to scan and send tweets), for about two days. When I visit my original Twitter application, I can at least review tweets for up to four days before they are no longer available. True, I can probably adjust the “Settings” in TweetDeck and change the “Max. number of updates in a column” from the default value of 200 to a much larger number. However, regardless of what the maximum number of tweets that are displayed, I am sure that “Metcalfe’s Law” states that “one will need to locate an important Twitter message at least one day after the tweet vanishes from the system.”

Here are two strategies that I use to retrieve information in tweets, after they seem to disappear:

1.   Use any of the following “Paper.li” twitter newspaper archives. Thanks should be extended to the dedicated educators, whose names appear in brackets following the archive process that they initiated.

• The manitoba-educators Daily (Andy McKiel)
• The Tech News Daily (John Evans)
• The ideas Daily (Darren Kuropatwa)
• Superintendents (Darren Kuropatwa)
• The educateurs-francophone Daily (Darren Kuropatwa)

To learn how you can retrieve tweets from any of the “Paper.li” archives, I recommend that you view my previous blog post entitled “Teacher Tool: The Manitoba-Educators Daily“. These archives provide an excellent source of ideas and resources that are either shared or received by Manitoba educators using Twitter.

2.   I admit that I often check Andy McKiel’s “The manitoba-educators Daily” because it is a powerful archive of tweets that have been created or re-tweeted exclusively by Manitoba educators. However, I must admit that there are times that I would like to have a personal archive of the tweets that I have sent out. Such a mechanism would allow me to retrieve from my “sent tweets” and perhaps DM (direct message) or send a particular tweet to other educators.

The solution that I implemented was to install the “Twitter Tools” WordPress plugin on recommendation from my DS106 instructors. They emphasize the communication and connecting that is so important in today’s world. Thanks to “Twitter Tools”, regular readers may view my latest three tweets under the “Tweets I’m Sharing” header in the green right-hand margin. Perhaps what I value more is the weekly archive of my tweets that are automatically generated each Sunday morning. For example, yesterday’s “Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-12” lists the 30 tweets that I either created or re-tweeted during the previous week. Furthermore, if the reader wishes to click on my “Social Networking” category in the green right-hand margin, all of my weekly archived tweets will be displayed.

I trust these strategies will help you keep better track of your tweets since I know that they are already helping me.

Take care & keep smiling

Credits:
-   Flickr – Creative Commons image “Follow me on Twitter”
by Slava Baranskyi– http://www.flickr.com/photos/woofer_kyyiv/3581392721/

At the beginning of this month, President Obama broadcast on national television the death of the terrorist and 9-11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. However, Twitter and social networking played an important role in the way people around the world became informed.

The first innocuous tweet was sent Sohaib Athar, a 33 year old programmer living in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan. His moment in history began with the tweet “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” He went on to “live blog” what he was witnessing as the covert operation to capture Osama Bin Laden unfolded.

Those connected by Twitter may have learned of the death of Bin Laden well before President Obama made his historic television broadcast. Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden”. This first credible tweet, regarding Bin Laden’s death, was followed up by Jill Scott, a CBS news producer, who confirmed the rumour by tweeting “House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin laden is dead. U.S. has the body.”

Upon reflection, the power of Twitter and social networking became quite apparent when these news-breaking, 140 character messages, were re-tweeted hundreds of times. In fact, a significant number of Twitter users, who closely follow news-breaking stories, were informed of Bin Laden’s death well in advance of the U.S. President’s television announcement.

I admit, that although I use Twitter and the TweetDeck application to network with educators, I learned of Bin Laden’s death when my son phoned to suggest that I turn on my T.V. to watch President Obama’s announcement. However, it was Alice Barr’s following tweet, which once again demonstrated the power of the Internet and social networking when she stated:

Tweet Details: Received – Sunday, May 1, 2011.
- Originally sent or “tweeted” by Maine technology educator, Alice Barr aka @alicebarr.
- Re-Tweeted (RT) by PR facilitator for The Manitoba Teachers’ Society, Raymond Job aka @raysadad.

That evening, when I investigated Alice’s tweet and searched for “Osama Bin Laden, the Wikipedia article had already been updated. On the right side of the web page, surrounding the terrorist’s picture were the recently modified birth and death dates of “March 10, 1957 – May 1, 2011 (aged 54)” and the “Place of death” was identified as “Abbottabad, Pakistan”.

The following brief paragraph was already entered on the left side of the web page:

“On May 1, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced on national television that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan and that his body was in U.S. custody.”

This “sweet tweet” entry reinforces the immediacy and power of social networking and we, as teachers, need to be aware and thoroughly investigate ways in which we can capitalize on this educational opportunity.

Take care & keep smiling

Twitter turns five years of age this month. Co-founder, Jack Dorsey, sent the world’s first twitter message: “just setting up my twttr” on March 21, 2006. Undoubtedly, in five short years, Twitter has changed the way many of us communicate and share information.

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it is a free, social networking and micro-blogging service that runs on both computers and internet-connected mobile devices. Since this communication service was designed to be used by people “on the move”, each message or “tweet” is limited to 140 characters so it can be easily displayed on the smaller cell phone screens.

As an educator, I use Twitter. I must admit that at first I could not see the benefit of receiving “tweets” that described what a person ate for breakfast, what music one was currently listening to, what sports team another individual was cheering for, or someone asking his/her “followers” for suggestions on how to train their dog. However, although these “somewhat superfluous” messages, in my humble opinion (often compressed in “tweets” as IMHO), still are sent, I find they take up far less than 10% of all my Twitter messages. Such unique messages do add a dimension to the individual sender of which one may not necessarily be aware. It is the remaining 90% of Twitter traffic that exposes me to interesting, educational activities and resources. In fact, it is Rodd Lucier’s “Twitter Bingo for Education” image that cleverly summarizes a variety of ways educators may use Twitter.

Having now used Twitter for more than a year, I thought that I should create this new blog category called “Sweet Tweet”.  Here, I hope to share meaningful, succinct messages that I think are unique and inspiring. As my first “Sweet Tweet”, I thought I would share the a powerful message from Kevin Kindred of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Following the recent tsunami and the resulting nuclear accident, Kevin provides an insightful perspective into most jobs when he compares his with a Japanese nuclear worker:

Tweet Details: Received – Thursday, March 17, 2011.
- Originally sent or “tweeted” by Kevin Kindred aka @kevinkindred.
- Re-Tweeted (RT) by Swan River educator, Ryan Maksymchuk aka @biggmaxx.

I encourage educators to register for a free Twitter account. Don’t feel that you need to contribute right away. Rather, be a lurker, and “follow” other educators with whom you feel a common grade, subject, interest or passion. Manitoba teachers might consider following some of the educators listed in the wiki called “Manitoba Teachers Who Tweet“.  I’m sure that in time you will find Twitter to be a powerful tool in helping to share knowledge and expand your personal learning network.

To help get you started using Twitter, I provide the following resources:

• Twitter in 60 seconds ( a YouTube video by Jim Gates)
• Twitter in Plain English (a 2:23 minute Common Craft video)
• How can we use Twitter for teaching and learning? (a slide presentation by Maggie Verster)
• Mastering Twitter in 10 Minutes – (a downloadable PDF by Chris Demetrios)
• Cure What Ails You: A Dose of Twitter for Every Day of the Year – (an ISTE 2010 presentation by Kathy Schrock with extensive resources displayed below the initial video screen)

I encourage readers to share their favourite tweets with me for possible inclusion in future “Sweet Tweets”. One may send them by Twitter to me at @bkmetcalfe, in this blog post “Comment”, or by email to Brian<dot>Metcalfe<at>life-long-learners<dot>com.

In closing, I trust that you will come to appreciate Howard Rheingold, when he stated, “I think successful use of Twitter means knowing how to tune the network of people you follow, and how to feed the network of people who follow you”.

Take care & keep smiling Brian

Credits:
- Flickr Creative Commons image “Twitter Bingo for Educators” by Rodd Lucier aka thecleversheep
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecleversheep/4119047800/
- Free Twitter Bird Icon Set from Gopal Raju with a special thanks to Chris Metcalfe for the “tweet bubble” graphic enhancement.